THE House of Representatives Committee on Sports Chairman, Godfrey Gaiya has said the committee will henceforth set up a sub-committees for closer monitoring of all sports federations in the country.Gaiya said the reason for the move is to ensure that the federations get and implement the 2012 budget that would be allocated to them effectively for the development of the sports.'We will reconstitute ourselves into sub-committees so that we can devote more time for the federations. It will be a daily routine to put them on their toes to ensure that they used the allocations for the purpose meant for,' said Gaiya.'I was not happy to know that none of the federation presidents had access into the annual federal budget or even know how much they were qualified to get. We are going to be open to them as soon as the 2012 budget is ready.'The federation would get whatever allocation due to them, as captured in the budget of the federal republic of Nigeria. We challenge them to inform us if they actually get what we approved to them. We will also use our oversight functions to monitor the release and implementations of their budget in 2012,' he added.Meanwhile,THE National Sports Commission on Monday revealed that they had proposed N17 billion for the 2012 fiscal year, but only N6.8billion was appropriated to it. It said that N2billion would be used for the 2012 London Olympic games, with the various Sporting Federations getting N273 million as subvention, while the NSC zonal offices will get N186 million.The Commission was defending its budget before the House of Representatives Committee on sports, saying that N50million was budgeted for the National Academical Committee, and another N50million was budgeted for another committee on primary school sports.The House of Representative Committee on Sports stepped down issues on the appraisal of the fund appropriated to the National Sports Commission in 2011 to enable them move ahead with that of 2012. The Acting Minister of Sports Bolaji Abdullahi was accompanied to the House by the Director General of the Commission and other senior officials. According to the Chairman of the Committee Godfrey Gaiya, the Director General of the Commission Patrick Ekeji only on Friday submitted an amended copy of the retirement list, subsequently withdrawing the earlier ones submitted. According to him, the timing made it difficult for members to go through the amended copies to enable them scrutinize it before hand. He promised that the issue will be revisited and the Director General will be called upon to answer whatever queries that may arise.
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